Thomas WailgumThomas brings nearly 15 years of technology reporting, writing and analysis experience to ASUG. Most recently, Thomas was senior editor for CIO.com and CIO magazine, where he provided coverage of SAP and its customers, consultants and IT partners. Contact Thomas at thomas.wailgum@asug.com and follow him on Twitter @twailgum.

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As is the case with every fiscal quarter that has just closed, SAP today unleashed a torrent of financial figures, growth percentages and other assorted earnings data and executive quotes that best sums up the past three months.

But another signifier is the tenor of the SAP earnings call with analysts and the media—the confidence of the executives and questions from those on the conference line. In short: SAP’s top brass today was full of good cheer and good news regarding the German software giant and its second quarter. (I was half-expecting co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Snabe to start screaming “SHOW ME THE EUROS!” to each other in Jerry Maguire-like celebration.)

OK, back to the numbers: Approximately $1.3 billion in software revenue for the quarter, and $3.8 billion in total revenue. All regions reported in with “double-digit growth,” including North America, which many SAP watchers were scrutinizing after a disappointing Q1. North America’s new president, Geraldine McBride, claimed a 32 percent increase in year-over-year software revenues.

And then there was SAP HANA, which “wins the gold medal this quarter,” stated Snabe—100 customers live and 500 more that have purchased HANA leading to an excess of $100 million in revenues. Throwing the fate of dozens of kittens to the wind, McDermott boldly stated on the earnings call: “HANA is the game changer of all game changers in the world of information technology today.”

In sum, SAP posted its best second-quarter in its four decades of existence. (The full results are here, for those who want to get their IFRS groove on.)

Here are 10 other fiscal facts and quotes about SAP’s Q2 that you might have missed:

1. The Cloud Also Rises. Cloud subscriptions and support revenues leapt 1200 percent (year over year). Thank you very much SuccessFactors.

2. Going Mobile. Mobility kicked in $65 million to SAP’s bottom line, with Snabe noting that SAP signed “the largest mobile device management deal in our history,” but declined to name the customer.

3. A Growing Concern. SAP execs attributed the 22 percent year-over-year increase in total operating expenses to numerous factors—acquisitions being a big piece and also adding 2,900 FTE (full-time equivalent) employees to headcount (which now stands at 60,972).

4. Watch Those Expenses, People! With that sizeable chunk of additional expenses, SAP’s operating margin dipped 2.4 percentage points, from 26 percent in Q2 2011 to 23.6 percent. Profitability after tax, however, increased 12 percent year over year to nearly $800 million.

6. Wait, There Are Economic Problems in Europe? SAP execs said they added 2,000 net-new customers in EMEA and grew twice as fast as Oracle in that part of the world.

7. Speaking of “Our Next Largest Competitor…” Snabe remarked (sort of offhandedly near the end of the call) that “when we compete [with Oracle], we win in eight out of 10 cases.” Talk about closing the deal.

8. How Many Business ByDesign Customers Are There? Last year’s target of 1,000 was met, Snabe stated. Going forward, he added, SAP will now start “calculating” the growth and success of ByD not by the number of customers but by the revenue it creates. Things that make you go hmmmmmm.

9. Not All Analysts Are Sold on SAP.Wrote Peter Cohen, an analyst at Cowen & Co. (as reported by ZDNet.com): “We are flummoxed by SAP’s results; it’s hard for us to imagine how a legacy on premise software vendor that generates 45 percent of revenues from Europe is printing such strong numbers when virtually every other legacy enterprise software vendor is struggling.”